Disappeared News

Friday, August 20, 2010

Panos on Global Warming (November 23, 2009) “I have been a skeptic of Global Warming since U.S. Vice President Al Gore received the Nobel Prize and evidence of fraudulent statements in his movie and writings were revealed. Then I read "Blue Planet in Green Shackles" by Czech Republic's President Vaclav Klaus whom Al Gore has never agreed to debate. ...Quite likely 2010 will be the year to leave Global Warming behind us and tackle real issues such as the supply of adequate food, water, energy, mobility and health-care for an ever increasing population and an ever improving standard of living on Earth.” http://fixoahu.blogspot.com/search/label/Environment

Blue Planet in Green Shackles: What Is Endangered Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic: “The largest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy, and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is no longer socialism or Communism. It is, instead, the ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous ideology of environmentalism. ...the environmental movement has transformed itself into an ideology that seeks to restrict human activities at any cost, and that policies being proposed to address global warming are both economically harmful -- especially to poor nations -- and utterly unjustified by current science.”http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Planet-Green-Shackles-Endangered/dp/1889865095

Panos on National Security (April 7, 2009): “Energy supply from abroad is a vulnerability. ... It is a major political and economic challenge but it is debatable whether it rises to the level of national security.”Sustainability Q&A http://fixoahu.blogspot.com/search/label/Environment

Panos on Globalization (April 7, 2009): “From the ancient times, trade among tribes was widespread. We now see the modern evolution of it. The globalization of trade is accelerating with more people, companies and countries involved in it every day. It is a natural flow impeded only by artificial protectionist policies. What many people resent is the globalization of culture. This is a less desirable byproduct of a rapidly interconnecting human race. It is up to individual regions to keep traditions of their cultures alive.”Sustainability Q&A http://fixoahu.blogspot.com/search/label/Environment

Panos on Poverty: “Walter Williams of the Jewish World Review makes a powerful argument that poverty as applicable worldwide is almost absent in the US. He says: ‘Material poverty can be measured relatively or absolutely. An absolute measure would consist of some minimum quantity of goods and services deemed adequate for a baseline level of survival. Achieving that level means that poverty has been eliminated. However, if poverty is defined as, say, the lowest one-fifth of the income distribution, it is impossible to eliminate poverty. Everyone's income could double, triple and quadruple, but there will always be the lowest one-fifth.’”

“The real malaise in the U.S. is poverty of the spirit which leads to many ills in our modern society: Yesterday's material poverty is all but gone. In all too many cases, it has been replaced by a more debilitating kind of poverty — behavioral poverty or poverty of the spirit. This kind of poverty refers to conduct and values that prevent the development of healthy families, work ethic and self-sufficiency. The absence of these values virtually guarantees pathological lifestyles that include: drug and alcohol addiction, crime, violence, incarceration, illegitimacy, single-parent households, dependency and erosion of work ethic. Poverty of the spirit is a direct result of the perverse incentives created by some of our efforts to address material poverty."http://fixoahu.blogspot.com/search/label/Homelessness

Panos on Rick Hamada: “For nearly three years now and on 40 or so Mondays per year I join political columnist and radio host Richard Hamada ...for a humorous, interesting and if I may say so, insightful, discussion on Honolulu city's issues and challenges relating to traffic and infrastructure, as well as on cost-effective ideas to mitigate these problems.” Hamada

Panos on the Republican Party (April 19, 2010) "I am pleased to announce that on Tax Day 2010 I joined the Republican Party of Hawaii. Why? ...As an engineer and individual I am fiscally conservative, so joining the GOP, the party that promotes transparency and accountability was a natural choice. I identify with the GOPs values of Liberty, Limited Government, Individual Responsibility, Fiscal Accountability, and Equality of Opportunity. ...Tax and Spend does not work. ...We need to bring more business sense to government. Government is supposed to take care of its people like a good business takes care of its employees." http://hawaiipoliticalinfo.org/node/2842

Finally we get some common sense answers that first do not have to pass through the politically-correct filters. As hard as it is for the left to swallow this, climate change is trivially influenced by man, there is no "absolute" poverty in the US, globalization is a good thing, and the Hawaii Republican Party values are simple, common sense values that have proven to work every single time they are applied.

So you can either vote for Panos and get common sense solutions that are driven by science and engineering, or you can vote for either of the two other guys and amplify the current glide slope of this City and County's sad state of affairs.

Henry, I'm curious as to why you post these "Gospel" items that have very little if any relevance to a mayor's duties and responsibilities. Other than perhaps the poverty issue, the Mayor of Honolulu has negligible impact on those issues.

Thankfully the Mayor's position is supposedly neither a Democrat or Republican seat. At the moment though, I still think he just may be the best choice among the candidates for our next Mayor. Do you have another better choice? All the same,its very troubling and sad that he is not independent and embraces the republican party.

You wrote: “I'm curious as to why you post these "Gospel" items that have very little if any relevance to a mayor's duties and responsibilities.”

My Reply: All of my quotes are from the Panos For Mayor Website. I could have cited other quotes found on the lead page of “On The Issues” (http://www.fixoahunow.com/page/on-the-issues):

“Traffic Congestion ...Compressed work weeks (4 day, 10 hours per day) and moving UH start times outside the typical commuter peaks will help substantially and immediately.”

The Mayor can order permanent Furlough Friday for city workers but not for other companies. Nor does he have any control over the start time for UH. Furlough Friday created havoc for working parents with children, from issues of picking up kids to the Latch Key syndrome.

“HOT lanes provide the best efficiency in congestion relief. Even if a small portion of traffic diverts to the HOT lanes and pays a toll (which is congestion insurance because toll payers are guaranteed a trip at 60 miles per hour), traffic is lessened on existing free roads which benefits to those who do not pay.“

HOT Toll Roads are like Zipper Lanes for one person vehicles. Yet Zipper Lanes do not significantly reduce drive time for non-Zipper vehicles. Rather they are designed to encourage person to drive with someone else in the car. That success rate is small.

“Some of Oahu’s intersections are so congested that a traffic light cannot improve traffic flow. Two-lane underpasses will reduce congestion almost by half and substantially reduce traffic”

I had trouble picturing this. How many underpasses do YOU envision and where would they be located? How much would each one cost? How would faster moving cars decrease the risk to the elderly seeking to cross the street?

One quality that I find in Panos that is refreshing is he has ideas and opinions but he's willing to listen to all sides.

He's not a politician with a big fat ego. Panos is running for Mayor because he sees the fiscal burden that Oahu will face with the $5.5 Billion Rail System. He's for traffic relief and solutions but feel that this heavy steel system is outdated and uncalled for. He has plans to fix the sewer systems.

As Mayor, I believe he will work well with people. We don't need another arrogant bully at city hall. I saw him at a Talk Story sessopm with Neil Abercrombie. Those two talked and got on well like two uncles. Go ask Neil about Panos.

Who would you prefer? Governor Hanemman and Mayor Caldwell- the same old mafia team? Or Governor Abercrombie and Mayor Panos?

Henry, your response is disingenuous at best. You state your sources are Panos' campaign website yet not a single link on our sources points to his page. Yes, you're pulling from Panos' blog but that's his notebook for all kinds of ideas including humor.

While I'm sure Panos will not retract any blog posts, the fact remains that you cherry picked issues not on his campaign web site and the issues you picked have very little to do with what is within the power of the Mayor's office.

Be that as it may, to comment on your rebuttal:

You incorrectly state that zipper lanes do not significantly reduce drive time for non zipper lane users. While that is technically correct in Honolulu's case, that is only because we are extremely lane deficient. When you are -3 lanes of capacity deficit, adding +1 zipper lane still leaves you with -2 lanes of congestion.

If the highway is properly engineered with adequate capacity, congestion will be reduced for both HOTlanes and Free lanes. It's pretty obvious math: adding two lanes of capacity will pull that many cars off the existing lanes. It's almost like the huge reduction in congestion that East Honolulu got when Kal Hwy added one line in either direction.

Re: underpasses. There are several places where underpasses would give a huge reduction in congestion: Lunalilo Off-ramp, Pali/Vineyard intersection, Kapiolani/Kalakaua intersection to name a few. These could be done for less than $50 which is far less that what we've already spent just studying rail. Faster moving cars don't reduce the risk to the elderly, but faster moving cars that pass under the street do not pose any risk to the elderly at all.

Panos is the breath of fresh air this town has been waiting for. Everyone always complains that the choices suck every election. This is the first time in my lifetime we have a chance to vote for a common sense man who puts political aspiration aside and engineering discipline first. Go Panos!